new work

Army of Me, 2015
Large Format Photograph
Epping Forest

doreen

In the 1970's my Auntie Jessie lived in Clapton and it was a two bus trip to get there from Loughton. We changed buses at Bakers Arms and on the return journey our bus stop was opposite a shop called Doreen. I remember waiting for the 20 in a shoe shop doorway and gazing across at Doreen, it was special because it's my mum's name and we though that was the bees knees! Its getting on for 40 years since I made this journey and Doreen has remained a landmark over the decades and I've marvelled that it was still going strong. Its displays and shop front were dated and I wondered about the clientele, today I googled and discovered it was one of the first shops to cater for transvestites and is famous. 

Sadly, after 60 years the shop has recently closed, I saw cardboard boxes in the empty windows when I passed on the bus this week and went back today to photograph the shop front before it is dismantled. My mum will be 80 in a few months, we made these journeys when she was in her 40's, as I am now. I can't wait to tell her about the shop. So goodbye Doreen, you have been a constant since my childhood and I'm so sad to see you go.

kin

London Underground trains rattle and rumble along dark tunnels and its fun to look at the distorted reflections of passengers on the curved windows opposite. Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye I see someone knitting and have a mini jolt of excitement! Thrilling! What are they making? Only to discover, on furtive second glance, that they are untangling headphones. Mixed with a heart sink of disappointment is laughter at myself because this has happened on countless occasions. I'm tuned into the makers, the menders, the stitchers, subconsciously searching for kin, as we all are.

haddon hall

It must be close to 20 years since I first walked the wonderful circular route from Bakewell, through the grounds of Chatsworth, past Rowsley and Haddon Hall before returning to Bakewell. The walk is varied, with forests, modest climbs, verdant rolling landscape, stately homes, quaint stone houses, tea rooms and the memories of people I've walked with over the years. For these reasons it's a favourite of mine but in all those years I've never taken the path to Haddon Hall, well, last Saturday I did! Roaming the hall and gardens with my sister and struck by the feeling that this is a lived in house rather than an exhibit I wondered in what films the hall had featured. Back in London that same evening, holiday over, I tuned in to watch Jane Eyre and was stunned to see the hall and garden populated and full of life on the screen. How exciting to see the same pink blossom I'd photographed that morning! Below are snippets from my visit, things that caught my eye. I'm being a tease so no views of the building, you will have to go and see it for yourself.

walk

A walk, there and back, along the disused railway from Elgin to Lossiemouth.

father

I've just returned from a fleeting visit to Elgin, Moray, a wonderful part of Scotland. Almost 6 years ago I met my cousin Shelia at my cousin Krysia's funeral in Elgin, and yesterday I visited Shelia's home and the hours flew as we chatted and discovered a shared interest in family history. Out came a tin of old photographs and amongst them were these of my father as a young man before WWII. I've seen the first one before, a dapper chap who earned his nickname 'the cock of the North' but the other two are new to me and it gladdened my heart to see my dad as a smiling teenager, tanned and strong, surrounded by friends and his brother Alexander, Shelia's father. 

These photos date from the 1930's and show the young people potato picking.

diary

From age 16 I kept a diary, this continued until I was 42. How easily I could rediscover the boy obsessed teenager, the social life of my university years and be surprised at how memory plays tricks. Convinced by a recollection, I’d read back and see it was false, not how I’d recorded it at all. Could my recording also be false? What is truth?

For years I moved with these diaries into a series of house shares. Pages and pages of the past, biro bio, I developed a love hate relationship and fantasised about destroying them. In Nottingham in the mid nineties I had ripped one up, immediately feeling horrified that I no longer had the ‘complete’ set of my life! Could I free myself from the compulsion to write every night? After 26 years it is a challenging question. Too much self reflection, yuk, and its physical bulk grew and grew. It was HEAVY. I felt chained. 

There seems to be a universal belief that we SHOULD keep our diaries, that they may be useful to others in the future. A compulsion that every moment must be recorded, every moment could be commodified. What about having a private thought? Not one ounce of me wants anyone to read my diary. 

I shared on Facebook that I was considering destroying my diaries, testing the idea, making it solid. The response was surprising, people were genuinely horrified and couldn't relate to the idea of 'freeing myself'', they warned of regret. Something powerful was bringing peoples ‘stuff’ to the surface. I fantasised about making a ritual out of burning them, but in the end tore them into pieces and recycled them. It took a couple of evenings and I destroyed in year order, following some internal logic. Before ripping them I read through, copying out some pages: most movingly the days around my fathers death when I was 19. It was emotional reading about this and my past loves, past hopes.

It felt naughty to stop writing and I did so for over a year, but on the 30th of December, 2014 I began again. Not writing helped me to recognise the benefit this activity holds for me and as the first day in my new diary approached I felt excited. In the first week of this year I attended a local writers group, and this notion that we should keep our diaries came up, that they are a mine of information for the writer. I understand this position but have not felt regret for my actions. It was necessary to help me look forward, to be who I am now and to recycle a long winded keepsake which held a lot of negativity. It let me endlessly repeat the old stories and old hurts, time to move on.